6th FF AREA MEETING - Ashdown Forest - 9 October 05

Report and photos from Gary Oulds of Crawley DMAC

"Edging the Wood line "

Alex Cameron prepares his F1A

Plenty of sunshine, broken clouds and light winds, the ideal flying conditions across the forest, well, almost. The wind direction was a little woody (southerly) throughout the day, as indicated by the mylars swinging about over the Friends Clump car park.

Flyers played the lottery game a little bit today, hopefully launching models when the wind swung towards a nice favourable South Westerly, but many flights headed out edging the wood line. If you were lucky a short flight or marginal max wouldn’t put you right in it.

But later on in the day several models went out over the lodge woods where they encountered quite strong thermals. Peter Cameron’s A1 was recovered safely from one such flight which really rocked away after climbing high in an exceptionally good patch of air well up over the trees, it took over three minutes to come down on DT. Peter and Alex returned relatively quickly after tracking it down safely, it was found just inside the lodge grounds. Bob Taylor wasn’t quite so fortunate; his Vintage Coupe model just didn’t want to come down and went missing in action. He returned modeless after a search effort failed to reveal where it had hidden itself. Ken Taylor was also in trouble, even though he could see his model, it was stuck fast in a tree at over seventy foot tall and just too awkward on the day, even for the famous East Grinstead recovery poles to get. Brindley was flying well again this meeting, this time with his Caprice glider, he’d got three maxes in quite earlyand was able torelax before the fly offs. Alex Cameron seemed to be really into the groove in glider today and both he and Maidstone’s Mike Cook maxed out.

John Oulds with his Coupe

In F1C Neil Allen’s model was temporarily silenced after his fourth max found the trees, it didn’t break his rhythm though, the model was undamaged and still on perfect trim for the fifth flight. He also had time to rattle off three maxes in Coupe before the day was done. Also flying Coupe were, John Oulds, Robin Willes and Martin Stagg. John was also on a bit of a roll at the time, flying well and probably just needing that little bit of extra luck on his last flight to see him through. Disappointingly it wasn’t to be, despite willing it on, it just didn’t catch the air at the end of its power run, and the model was downed 30 seconds short, still a good effort finishing just ahead of Martin Stagg on the day. Jervis Sheppard thought everyone was possibly going to move round, after a flurry of models started to regularly pepper the woods. So he decided to make the hike to Camp Hill in anticipation that maybe the rest would follow suit, he had one flight I believe, before eventually returning to the fold, as most had decided to stay put, and take their chances at Friends Clump after all. Tony Clark’s A1 had a lucky escape, the model looked destined to become yet another meal for the trees, but safely cleared them. It could be seen lying on the ground just up in the fields beyond the stream…That’s lucky…more than lucky!

Maidstone’s Electric Trevor, also known to enjoy a spot of fishing, had put in three cracking E30 flights, was then on hand to help hook out a model or two and do some timing for club mates Mike Cook and John Richardson.

In the last hour I attempted to squeeze in three flights in glider…but this fell short by one flight as inevitably time run out, I couldn’t really complain, I figured I got out what I put in.

The Fly-offs

I think it was probably Trevor Grey who may have been first away, he made a

pretty fine flight of 4:27 in E30. This was seen safely recovered at the end of the day. Maidstone’s Mike Cook then put in a terrific flight with his A2, which sailed away up the valleys for 5:22.

Meanwhile at the car park Alex Cameron towed his glider up. The initial test circle was notably hanging high and the moment presented itself there and then. He patiently waited for the model to line itself up, giving himself plenty of room to really have a run up at the launch. I think he would agree it was possibly his best of the day, certainly a good time to produce it…as the model flipped it settled into a really super glide. John Richardson was clocking and when it finally DT’d down, disappeared just beyond the lodge row of trees for 6:33.The model had come to rest safely on a forestry firebreak, missing all the usual hazards. (It was actually discovered first by two passing deer, the model was obviously thought worth a look over before moving on).

Brindley towed up underneath naturally trying to piggyback into the same air as Alex with his Caprice. And although Brin’s flight was good, the flight never really caught light, eventually coming to rest at 2:03 and just into the first rows of trees.

Last to show, and I guess rather fittingly for this year, the final curtain call belonged to Neil Allen. The sound of silence was briefly broken over the forest and our heads turned to view a now familiar looking silhouette arching skywards when the revolutions finally cut the model transitioned well and was last seen soaring silently across the forest………finally coming to rest edging the wood line.